Connecting the dots between fantasy and reality: The social psychology of our engagement with fictional narrative and its functional value

This essay provides an overview of research and theory on narrative and its important, functional role in human experience, including the ways people use media to interrogate their own beliefs and feelings, and derive social meaning. Thought‐provoking film, television, and books can help us make meaning of our lives and grow in ways that are important for our successful social functioning. Research reviewed here demonstrates that exposure to fiction can increase empathy and social skills and reduce prejudice. Our connection to characters and stories has been studied in various ways as extensions of the self into another, while at the same time bringing the other into the self. Bringing together disparate perspectives, we propose that connecting to story worlds involves a process of “dual empathy”—simultaneously engaging in intense personal processing while also “feeling through” characters, both of which produce benefits. Because the value of entertainment narratives may not always be well understood, we explain how those experiences can be personal, social, and can serve important adaptive functions.     

White Women and the Dark Mother

One of the foremost champions of the ‘Dark Mother’ today is the overwhelmingly white feminist spirituality movement, based in the United States and Europe. Over the past twenty-five years, white spiritual feminists have approached the figure of the Dark Mother, which is borrowed from Hindu, African and Christian sources, with a uniquely fraught mix of longing, envy, hope, fear and guilt. This article first discusses the explicit justifications that white spiritual feminists offer for the incorporation of the Dark Mother into their religiosity, including their analysis of how the concepts of ‘lightness’ and ‘darkness’ are deployed and gendered in patriarchal religions. It then argues that, contrary to spiritual feminist claims, the Dark Mother as such does not exist cross-culturally but is rather the joint creation of the history of religions, Jungian psychology and spiritual feminist ingenuity, and that she is constructed and utilised primarily as a means of working through white racial guilt.     

Social demand characteristics in children's and adults' eyewitness memory and suggestibility: the effect of different interviewers on free recall and recognition

Shortly after viewing a video of a theft, 5‐ and 7‐year‐old children and adults were interviewed with free recall and either misleading or unbiased‐leading questions. After a 2‐day delay, participants were interviewed with free recall and recognition questions administered by either the same or a different interviewer. Results from day 1 replicate previous findings with levels of recall and resistance to suggestibility increasing with age. Counter to predictions, correct recognition performance on day 2 was greater for some participants interviewed by the same as opposed to a different interviewer, and incorrect recognition was greater for all groups of participants for those interviewed by a different as opposed to the same interviewer. Results are discussed in terms of the role of context dependence on memory performance. Copyright © 2000 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.     

Women in advertisements in medical journals

To determine the images of women in picture advertisements, a stratified random sample of 32 medical journals, representing approximately 12% of medical journals published in the United States that are directed toward physicians in clinical practice, was subjected to content analysis. The sample consists of 209 different ads. The subjects of the ads included men, women, and children representing a variety of ethnic, racial, and socioeconomic groups. Notable, however, was the preponderance of Caucasian males pictured as physicians and the absence of women and people of color in this role. Women are pictured as 68.1% of consumers and men as 31.9%, a significant difference. Statistically significant differences also occur in the images of men and women as consumers. Most of the workers are men (68.2%), another significant difference. When women depicted are workers, they are secretaries and waitresses. Portrayals of women in medical advertisements continue to be stereotyped and outdated.     

The Effects of Actual Behavior vs. Mere Labelling in Attribution of Sex Differences

A recurrent problem in interpreting research showing differential reactions to the sexes is that such results may reflect real behavior differences among those observed or differential expectations of those observing. This study used a methodology which allowed these two competing explanations to be tested by assessing whether subjects' ratings of taped interactants whose gender was ambiguous would be determined mainly by what gender the subjects thought the interactants were or by the interactants' behavior. The results showed that the causes of the sex differences in assessments differed depending on what type of assessment was being made. Specifically, behavior differences and not observers' expectations about such differences largely determined observers' ratings of specific attributes of the interactants, but observers' expectations and not behavior differences determined observers' general ratings of masculinity/femininity.     

Prediction of toddlers’ expressive language from maternal sensitivity and toddlers’ anger expressions: A developmental perspective

Despite evidence for the importance of individual differences in expressive language during toddlerhood in predicting later literacy skills, few researchers have examined individual and contextual factors related to language abilities across the toddler years. Furthermore, a gap remains in the literature about the extent to which the relations of negative emotions and parenting to language skills may differ for girls and boys. The purpose of this longitudinal study was to investigate the associations among maternal sensitivity, children's observed anger reactivity, and expressive language when children were 18 (T1; n = 247) and 30 (T2; n = 216) months. At each age, mothers reported on their toddlers’ expressive language, and mothers’ sensitive parenting behavior was observed during an unstructured free-play task. Toddlers’ anger expressions were observed during an emotion-eliciting task. Using path modeling, results showed few relations at T1. At T2, maternal sensitivity was negatively related to anger, and in turn, anger was associated with lower language skills. However, moderation analyses showed that these findings were significant for boys but not for girls. In addition, T1 maternal sensitivity and anger positively predicted expressive language longitudinally for both sexes. Findings suggest that the relations between maternal sensitivity, anger reactivity and expressive language may vary depending on the child's developmental stage and sex.     

An Empirical Evaluation of the Diagnostic Criteria for Premenstrual Dysphoric Disorder: Problems with Sex Specificity and Validity

Premenstrual dysphoric disorder is a psychiatric disorder that reportedly affects between 3 to 8% of women. Although not an official diagnosis in the current Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, premenstrual dysphoric disorder has received increasing attention in the clinical literature, and considerable debate exists regarding the validity of this proposed condition. This study examined the prevalence of premenstrual dysphoric disorder in a sample of women and men and assessed the construct validity of the disorder. Twenty percent of women met the criteria for provisional diagnosis of premenstrual dysphoric disorder using Diagnostic and Statistical Manual criteria. In addition, 4% of men met these criteria when given sex-neutral assessment forms. Self-reported psychological distress and impaired interpersonal functioning did not predict women's likelihood of meeting the criteria for premenstrual dysphoric disorder. Results cast doubt on the sex-specificity of the diagnostic criteria of premenstrual dysphoric disorder and the construct validity of the disorder. Limitations of this study are discussed.     

Gender Differences in Problem Solving: Expectancy and Problem Context

In this study, we investigated gender differences in problem solving as a function of problem context and expectations for success. Subjects were 90 women and 56 men from introductory psychology classes who were administered a set of mathematical problems varying in gender context under male-expectancy, female-expectancy, and neutral-expectancy conditions. No significant gender differences or interaction of gender with problem context were found. However, significant effects of problem context and expectancy were found. Both male and female subjects made higher scores on female-context problems and lower scores in the female-expectancy condition. When mathematics aptitude was used as a covariate, an interaction of gender with expectancy was found. Men in the female-expectancy condition made significantly lower scores than either men or women in the male-expectancy condition.     

Studies on Interfaith Relations: Latest Input for Authority Management Review (AMR) in Malaysia

Malaysia is a multi-religious society with 28.3 million people. The country had succeeded in managing religious diversity for almost fifty-seven years. This includes the promotion of interfaith relationships granted under the right to religious freedom, which is protected by the State. There are, however, emerging interfaith challenges, including conversion from one faith to another and reversion back to the original faith, these types of challenges appearing especially in the early millennium. This article reviews the ten latest research studies on interfaith issues in Malaysia and identifies useful themes for authority in exercising management review. Using the content analysis method, this study found that there are several important managerial aspects to be taken into serious consideration, including setting clear parameters for freedom of religion in Malaysia, clear procedures for managing religious conflict, managing faith with respect, and effectively promoting media advocacy. The findings also give insights on the development of interfaith studies in Malaysia.     

Inhibitory control over no-longer-relevant information: Adult age differences

Hartman and Hasher (1991) used a garden-path task in which younger and older adults generated the final word for each of a series of high-cloze sentences. Under instructions to remember the final word, the experiment included critical sentences for which the generated word was replaced by a new, to-be-remembered target. Using an implicit priming task, the first experiment replicated a basic finding: Younger adults showed priming only for the target words, whereas older adults showed priming for both the generated and target words. Two experiments explored boundary conditions. One showed that an additional sentence that interpreted the new target word enabled older adults to narrow access to only the target word. The provision of additional time following the introduction of the new target word did not. Specific information, not more time, is required for inefficient inhibitory mechanisms to clear the recent past from memory.